Reader Response

Reader Response

I am responding to Biography of Benjamin Franklin by Stephen Krensky. I have read 123 out 123 pages. This text is non-fiction.

Introduction

The genre of the text is a biography because it has photos of the person of interest and it’s based on someone. Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston in 1706. He was a gifted child that loved writing and science. he worked as a young apprentice at his brother’s printer shop. As Benjamin got older he wanted to start his own printer shop, so he set sail for Philadelphia to meet a famous printer, his name was Mr.Bradford. When Benjamin got there he was too late, all the jobs were taking so he just stuck around. While he was there he realized that he was better than most printers so he opened his own printer shop using the money earned from his brother’s. Later on in his life his printer shop was a big success, he was a really wealthy man. He could of retired while he was 50 but he was just beginning. He started to conduct experiments of electricity, his first invention the leyden jar. He used this to experiment with electricity for 9 years. After he finished he moved on with more experiments. As the years passed by he was a part of many important parts of history such as king George’s war, Boston tea party, and much more. When he died in 1790, 20,000 people came to pay their respects to him. He was a man of many things. He was a writer, scientist, politician, and much more. The point of view is from the author and Benjamin Franklin because it’s narrated with parts of Benjamin Franklin’s opinion. The kings like king George’s point of view is missing because king George doesn’t  have any say in . If he did he probably wouldn’t be looking like an antagonist. The pictures are helpful to people visuals because no one for the last 150 years hasn’t seen buildings like the white house in 1790. The chapter titles helped me because whenever i needed to skim through it for certain facts i could just look at the sub titles.

Retell

   The title of the text says to me it’s about Benjamin Franklin. I think it’s about this because in big bold letters on the cover it says “BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.” What I want to remember about this text is how much of an impact Benjamin made on the world. I wasn’t really interested  in him that much. All I knew him for was the guy who found electricity, but he was a lot more than that. He’s done more than everyone I know combined. Which is why i want to remember him. The author got me interested when Benjamin moved from home and begun his adventures at such a young age. The book made a huge up-turn from just describing his childhood in detailed description to him sailing away from home. The setting of the text was important because all of his adventures started when he moved to Philadelphia. He was born in Boston then he moved and started his quest to become a writer, printer and many other things.

Relate

  When Benjamin went to Philadelphia reminded me of when people threw snowballs at Santa. After that incident Philadelphia was known as the only place on earth that hates Santa. If I could be any character from the text i would be one of the kings because kings lived such great lives and their are barely any kings left so it would be a great opportunity. I am like Benjamin because science was my favourite subject growing up. I am different from Benjamin because he stuck with loving science for his whole life, I don’t like science now I’m more into P.E now. This time reminds me of history class last year because it mentions king George’s war and how that started and stuff. If I hadn’t learn that last year his biography would have been more confusing and harder to understand.


Reflect
  I disliked the beginning of this text because it started off pretty slow, describing every detail no one would really care about. It didn’t do a very good job of hooking you until the 3rd chapter. I think the illustrations helped because I’ve read what happens but they never gave a description of the scene. An example of one is the Boston tea party, wasn’t there to see it, never got a description of it but the illustrations helped me there. I’d like to read another text by him because I wasn’t interested in biographies but now i am. the way he organized it made it a lot easier to read. He actually added in some fun facts to make it more interesting to read instead of listing facts. He also put more time into Benjamin’s main accomplishments. This text makes me want to read more biographies because it’s interesting to read about everything someone famous isn’t known for.